You are here

Police: Somebody had quite the arsenal in Roslindale

Boston Police report seizing a cache of "seven high powered weapons and more than a thousand rounds of ammunition" on Seymour Street in Roslindale today.

Among the weapons seized: an AR-15-style assault rifle, an AK-47-style assault rifle, a .357 revolver, and several large-capacity feeding devices capable of holding armor-piercing ammunition. Also seized: More than 1,000 rounds of ammo, including armor-piercing bullets, more than 50 shotgun shells and "numerous grenade type projectiles for a grenade launcher." Also grabbed: Holsters and gun-cleaning kits.

Psst...Billy....read the post before yours. No grenade launcher, just a perfectly legal flare gun and some exaggeration to make the pinch look better. Also, i feel safer knowing they seized those deadly cleaning kits.

They're the same mechanism. Granted, they're different sizes, and there are no grenades that will fit in a flare launcher (standard ones, anyway), but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that someone in Roslindale probably didn't need a flare attachment on their rifle for emergency situations.

And just to clarify, I have no issue with people owning things like this, assuming the possession of them is legal, I just think it's dumb, much like someone driving down the highway in a lifted pickup truck with 30'' off road tires.

If BPD really needs to keep a lid on it in order to conduct further work, then it's proper not to disclose, I suppose. It's just that, if that arsenal happened to be 1 or 2 doors down from me, I think I'd like BPD to disclose the location.
What do you think? Is there much more to this disclosure business?

are guilty of some serious exaggeration here, as usual. And for the uninitiated, 1000 rounds is no big deal, sounds impressive if you know next to nothing about firearms, but it's actually a fairly small amount of ammo.

If he didn't have a permit its a problem, but this does seem like the BPD overreacting to a collector. I mean, I don't NEED to have three monitors connected to a kvm switch running a render farm, water cooled pc and linux box... but I do anyway. I like electronics. Guns are cheaper and have less of a nerd swing but its a similar thing.

If this dude was off his rocker or something then that's an issue too, hence why we have gun laws. I just wish the BPD would be honest instead of acting like they caught that guy in Tremors. Now THAT was an arsenal.

is like a catholic priest giving marriage advice. Trying to sound authoritative about something they have no personal experience or knowledge.

"large-capacity feeding devices capable of firing armor-piercing ammunition" doesn't make any sense. First of all, a feeding device, also known as a magazine, doesn't fire anything. Second, any magazine is going to be capable of loading armor piercing rounds if they are available in that caliber. They wrote that either out of complete ignorance of what they are talking about or wanted to make it sound scarier than it was.

As mentioned above, there's a 99% chance that is a flare launcher, which is perfectly legal as well as the rounds for it.

"More than 1,000 rounds of ammo" is what most people that shoot will keep on hand. Wal-Mart sells .22LR by the 500 round box. 1k rounds of ammo is nothing. "More than 50 shotgun shells". How scary. You will shoot more than that in an afternoon of skeet shooting.

I'd be interested to know if they actually had armor piercing rounds or if the cops are just clueless.

any of those so-called 'assault' rifles [they aren't real, military grade assault rifles, just sort of look like them] are automatic. I'm sure they're semi, which is perfectly legal to own, and are used for hunting and target practice, as long as you have a license.

There appears to be a tec 9 semi, which is basically junk but 'cool' looking, and is not illegal to own provided you have a license.

There are revolvers. Everybody I'm sure is familiar with a revolver. Not illegal provided, etc.,

There are cleaning kits + ammo rounds [not that much]

I'm assuming these are illegally owned by the owner, otherwise there's nothing illegal about anything here, provided you are licensed. It's called the second amendment, the right to bear arms. Many people, especially in rural areas like Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont own and use firearms. Many people like to hunt game. Many people simply enjoy target practice and collecting.

=======================

Police and prosecutors [and I'm not gratuitously anti-law enforcement] routinely do things like exaggerate what's seized in situations like this [they know most people are ignorant of firearms and the law] to help make the prosecution case stronger, they do things like deliberately make mugshots look bad or ridiculous, just to make the defendant 'look' bad, crazy, etc.,

It is what it is. The best advice anyone can be given if arrested is to keep your mouth shut until you speak with a competent lawyer. If you ever notice what happens when anyone from law enforcement gets arrested, they refuse to cooperate without their lawyer. They know. Copy what they do.

If people say it is a flare guy, than most likely that is the case.
But all I know is what I see on TV and the movies. And that thing looks like a grenade launcher. Which means that is why the guy put it onto his gun. Because it looks like a grenade launcher.

Thanks for being honest about your level of knowledge. TV and movies are generally very unrealistic about guns. If you only learned from those sources you would think that guns never run out of ammo and that fully automatic Uzi's can be shot accurately one handed.

Yes it looks like a grenade launcher and the guy probably put it on his gun for the reason you mention. Kinda like the guy that puts giant wing on their Honda. Silly from a utilitarian point of view, but hey, it's his gear, he can silly it up any way he wants.

The only thing that matters is the official charges on the court complaint, the lab results from who examined the guns, and any interview where the owner explained his intent to modifying any of the firearms and their intended use (if he is unlicensed).

There isn't going to be much exaggerated in these police reports, except for what an intern screws up. Most of the cops invoved in drawing up these charges are ex-military gun nuts themselves who love the 2nd ammendment as much as the trolling gun nuts on boars like this one.

If they are such gun-nuts, then why don't they know what they are talking about? I'm not a gun nut, but I'm fairly conversant about guns and knowledgeable about MA gun laws. Here's some more ridiculous claims from the press release:

"seven high powered weapons". One of which is a .25 ACP, a tiny round barely bigger than a .22LR. No one with an understanding of firearms would refer to that as a "high powered weapon". In fact, both seized rifles are chambered in .223 according to the police. Many states ban using .223 for deer hunting because it's TOO WEAK and the fish and game departments feel its use is inhumane. So defining .25acp and .223 as "high powered" either renders the term completely meaningless or perhaps they're describing it that way to sensationalize very mundane firearms.

"ammunition magazine for the assault rifle with the capability of holding 100 rounds of .223 armor piercing rounds of ammuntion". Is there some special magazine for armor piercing rounds that only the cops know about? Because as I mentioned above, a magazine is a magazine. It's also capable of holding 100 rounds of blanks. Why didn't they mention that too?

Another question: Why did they seize and display the cleaning kit, holsters, speed loaders, etc. These are perfectly legal to own without any license.

(even though I have the same knowledge and can consider myself a gun nut),

My point was that it doesn't matter what is written on a news blurb. What matters is what is written on the court complaint. The officers who are going to write up the warrant and arrest report aren't going to be the ones writing up the news blurb that you are complaining about.

When an affidavit is brought in front of a judge for illegal weapons and ammunition and it is signed as a warrant, it means some dangerous items are in the hands of someone who shouldn't be in possession of it. Most people are happy that the person who was in possession of these dangerous items are no longer in possession of it. Depending on the person, this seizure may have saved many lives.

And they seize all other instruments of the crime to show the intent of the suspect (that he/she used/planned to use the illegal weapons and didn't just have them as some sort of collection.)

I can't tell from the photo as to whether it's a ban compliant rifle. If it's post ban production and has an adjustable/folding stock, bayonet lug or flash hider, it would be illegal in MA. If it has a fixed position stock (or permanently pinned adjustable one) and none of other features deemed too evil for MA, it's legal in MA regardless of manufacture date. All of course assuming you have the proper license.

It would be interesting to know the circumstances in this case. Is it someone that moved to MA from another state without realizing gun laws are much different here, or was someone simply ignoring the laws at their own peril.

If the guy was selling the stuff on the street, or if he was just collecting illegally, then good for them.

Otherwise, owning multiple guns is not a big deal. Owning ammunition is not a big deal. At the shooting range, you'd go through 1,000 rounds damn quick. And 'armor-piercing ammunition' isn't a big deal either. Police departments shifted over to 'killer' ammunition many years ago, around the same time they went to higher caliber weapons.

If you put all that small stuff in a box, it would be a pretty small box.

up

Voting is closed. 0

Support Universal Hub

Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.